SBTMK Chapter 14

Flora knew at once that she was dreaming.

If she weren't, she wouldn't be in Cenkan. Rene wouldn't be alive.

A woman in a frilled dress that did nothing to show her figure sat reading in the gardens of Meryn Castle. Her hair was emerald green, fresh as new growth.

Flora walked toward her.

"Rene. What are you doing?"

"Oh, I was reading."

"A fairy tale."

"Yes…… They say it's good for children."

Rene smiled brightly and stroked her belly.

The hand stroking the round, full belly was quite gentle and careful.

"How many months now?"

"Seven."

Rene was smiling. Flora was not.

Seven months meant that incident had already been well over half a year ago.

Meryn Castle housed many knights alongside the unnamed Ruels, and the scholars and researchers who assisted in the experiments. The castle's conditions were poor. It sat on a remote island in the middle of the sea—Cenkan territory, but isolated enough that acquiring basic necessities was difficult, and food was always scarce. Even rooms were in short supply. Knights were grouped into units and slept in shared quarters, several to a room.

A private room was reserved for knights who had earned distinction in service, or for those who had fallen ill.

Rene had lived with the others. The problem was that the quarters were not divided by sex. When men and women shared rooms regardless of whether they shared beds, trouble followed as a matter of course.

Cenkan was a place where the habit of the strong governing the weak ran without limit. Knights of that country had not been given the formation for caring about those beneath them, or for restraint.

Rene, who had scraped into the corps by the narrowest margin, had always been a target.

Flora had protected her when she could, but once she had her own room, she couldn't watch over Rene at every hour.

And so it happened. One of the knights who shared Rene's quarters got drunk and did what he did.

Sober, he wouldn't have dared touch her—not with Flora to fear. But what sobriety withheld, drink gave back freely.

Flora killed him first—while he was still begging for his life.

Ayden, the castle's master, was out of his mind in the way he was—but toward Flora, he had always been permissive. She'd killed a fellow knight and received six months' docked pay. A tap on the wrist.

But killing him didn't undo what had already been done.

Rene had been the brightest, most resilient woman Flora knew. Fair skin and the scatter of freckles across her cheeks, and a dimple on the left side when she smiled—all of it made her look softer, more feminine. After what happened, she went through the days like someone already dead. She didn't smile. She didn't cry.

Any Cenkan knight could produce that expression through training. On Rene, it had never fit.

Flora had been anxious she might never come back. The Rene who was lovely to look at, who lifted your mood just to look at, who never let Flora get away with dishonesty.

Time was merciful. It brought her back.

When Rene laughed again for the first time, Flora had dared to ask if she was all right. Rene had answered that she had been prepared—it was something that was always going to happen eventually.

As it was, rape between knights was already something that happened without restraint inside the castle. Rene had not been the first. Those who came before had killed themselves, gone mad, or simply accepted their circumstances the way Rene had.

Ayden knew all of it. He did not change the rules. He found the world he had made in that castle—the one where violations spread without consequence—interesting.

He had even persuaded them that bearing a child would be recognized as distinguished service and earn a private room.

Rene became pregnant. She said she would have the child. Her belly was already visibly round.

There was no way Flora could welcome a child she knew the circumstances of.

Rene did, improbably, welcome it. She was happy.

Flora could not understand that.

But if Rene was happy, Flora had decided that was enough.

In all the time Flora had known her, Rene had never looked more at peace than this.

The scene shifted in an instant. A dream still, and a familiar space.

She wanted to wake up. Her body wouldn't move. It was like being pinned beneath a dragon's forefoot—even breathing took effort.

The room held only a bed and a wardrobe, standing sparse in the poor light. Dark mold had crept up the walls. The bed was old and rotted through; it creaked and groaned at every movement.

Flora had pulled a chair to the bedside and sat.

Rene, propped against the headboard, was staring out the window. Then she spoke.

"Flora. I…… I want to stop. I want to run away from here."

The words hit like a blow.

The knights of Meryn Castle could not resign of their own will.

The people here were fated to live their whole lives in Ayden's grip. So when Rene said what she said, Flora heard only one thing: I want to die.

"Rene. What are you saying?"

Escaping from this remote island was unlikely to succeed—but knights had slipped away during missions and tried. It wasn't wholly impossible.

No one who tried had survived. Not even in rumor.

The reason Ayden and Laviu hunted them so relentlessly was obvious enough. What happened inside this castle could not be allowed to reach the outside world.

Cenkan was a tiger with its claws sheathed. The great powers had written it off as a small and pitiable nation. They had no idea there was a weapons factory running on an island.

Ayden's alchemy was not yet perfected.

He had succeeded in augmenting parts of the body. But he was not satisfied with that.

Cenkan's purpose was to take those born without mana and plant it in them—to manufacture Masters who could wield both magic and swordsmanship simultaneously.

It was plainly the domain of God. Ayden challenged it anyway.

Until that research was complete, Cenkan would not bare its claws. It would do what it had always done: dispatch agents into every empire, monitor the political situation, extract confidences to be stored as leverage, and grow fat on the amassed intelligence.

So Ayden and Laviu would never let a fugitive simply go. Not quietly, not at all.

If one in a hundred escaped by grace, they would cut out the tongue first, so nothing could be spoken, and sever the arm at the wrist, so nothing could be written—and only then release them.

"……At first I thought it didn't matter."

Rene was choosing that road. She said it knowing all of this.

"But not anymore. This child is going to go through exactly what I went through. I don't want her to live like that."

"Rene. You don't want her to live like that? That's a great honor. It's something that would be a huge help to Cenkan. Imagine the child enduring everything and becoming a hero!"

Rene's expression was one of complete detachment.

"I've lived imagining exactly that, all this time. Flora. Watching you was how I endured. I've been following your back, thinking that someday I wanted to stand beside you."

"……"

"But look at me now. I couldn't even protect my own body—I'm pregnant from a relationship without love. I can feel myself getting slower. I don't think I'll be able to hold a sword even after giving birth."

Rene looked down at her full belly and smiled—a sad smile.

"The dream I had was a foolish one. No matter how hard I try, I could never be like you."

In that moment, Flora had a bad feeling. The kind of bad feeling that perhaps Rene would disappear from in front of her forever.

"Rene! Don't say such weak things. You can do this."

"Lord Ayden's research will keep improving. Maybe my child will become a powerful Master."

"……"

"But…… what if she doesn't? What if it's a foolish dream? I don't want to throw my child into that gamble."

Flora couldn't understand it.

"There was nothing I could protect with my own hands. But this child—I want to protect her, no matter what……"

No. Perhaps she had simply refused to understand.

Until she heard Rene say she wanted to run, Flora had never thought about leaving this place. Not even as imagination. Not even once.

Flora was Cenkan in her bones. The castle was what she called home. She was the only one here born with mana.

Perhaps for that reason—because Ayden had come, and more children had come, and the strange experiments had begun—she had lived a different life than the others. She had never had cause to resent it.

To keep living with those privileges, she had to climb. And to climb, you trampled. She had understood this as the natural order and had worked accordingly.

Flora had lived with real ruthlessness. There had been times she had to kill a comrade she had grown close to, with her own hands.

Rene had stayed beside her through all of it. She had helped Flora make better choices when Flora's thinking went wrong.

Whatever remained of Flora's humanity—if anything did—Rene might have been the reason.

Rene was family. Comrade. The only one Flora had ever acknowledged.

When she heard Rene say escape, the shock was not something she could absorb quietly.

She was angry at Rene.

How can you say something like that?

The Rene who had changed was someone she resented.

"Help me. Flora. You're the only one who could. Lord Ayden, the researchers—they all get along with you. They grant most of your requests. Let me out of here."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Rene."

"Then just buy me a little time. I'll get out myself."

"Rene!"

Flora struck her cheek for the first time that day.

Rene's face turned half away. It didn't come back. She only sobbed, like that, turned toward the wall.

"……Flora, are you happy living like this?"

Happy?

Was she happy. What was happiness, anyway.

Flora didn't answer.

After that day, Flora stopped seeing Rene as often as she had before. Rene stopped looking for Flora.

The distance between them grew. Flora was still angry, even then.

She had decided this was entirely Rene's fault.

She had no intention of apologizing first. She didn't want to speak to her until Rene changed her mind.

Acting so foolishly over some child. It was pathetic.